


Eärendil on the purchasing of whores (or how to convince the Valar to save the world)

by Encairion



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 05:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4612980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Encairion/pseuds/Encairion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eärendil’s failure was not that he loved them too little, it was that he didn’t turn the ship around, dive straight into the sea, anything but go on with the mission the moment Elwing told him their boys might not be dead.  It would have been better to die trying to get back to them, then live though what came after.  </p><p>This is Eärendil’s story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Eärendil on the purchasing of whores (or how to convince the Valar to save the world)

Chapter 1

Eärendil rolled over on the bed, hand reaching out for the body of his wife, but finding only cold sheets. He sat up, swiping hair out of his eyes and blinking off the fog of sleep.

Elwing stood at the window, arms crossed over her abdomen, her silhouette framed by the sea glittering under the light of the moon. Eärendil rose and went to her, slipping his arms about her waist and drawing her back against his chest. He dropped his nose into her silver hair, inhaling her scent. Her silk nightdress slipped sensually through his fingers.

“Can’t sleep?”

She didn’t answer. Eärendil stiffened, arms closing tighter about her.

If he turned her, he would find her face blank or tear-stained, depending on the dream’s nature. The dreams were rarely anything worth smiling over. Yet by the time the sun crested the horizon, Elwing would shake the shadows of the night off and clasp optimism to her breast. Even with the Enemy creeping closer every year, still she found hope in the darkness.

“What did you dream?” His voice dropped low. He did not want to know, but he needed to. He would not leave her to bear this burden alone.

“Fire. The Havens burned. Blood. There was blood flowing like water through the streets. Elrond and Elros—”

His hands clenched in the silk of her nightdress. “What? Tell me. What happened to our boys?”

“I did not see. They were in their bedroom, huddled together. Elros had a knife, and the door was opening. A shadow of great height came first. Elrond was crying. I did not see…I did not see what came through that door. I did not see—” The detachment in her voice snapped on a sob.

Eärendil clasped his wife close, rocking her and petting her beautiful hair. “Shh, my love, shh. We have warning now. We will not let this future come to pass.”

Elwing drew herself from his arms, turning to face him. Tears were on her face, but her mouth pinched tight with determination. “We will not. We are no Falathrim to accept the Song’s unchangeable nature and lay down to destiny. Was it not my own great-grandmother Melian who taught the Sindar that those who fought, who had a will fierce enough, could defy the Song? Was that not how the tale of Lúthien and Beren goes? Did they not defy the Song when Lúthien pulled Beren from death itself? We will not lie down and accept this. We will not.”

Eärendil took her slender hands in his. “We will not.”

She squeezed his hands back, determined eyes meeting determined eyes. “We will fight this future, but our people need hope. Their hearts falter.”

Eärendil’s eyes slid over her shoulder to the sea beyond. His heart lurched. He had not sought the sea since the twins’ birth two years ago.

When no news came in the months after his parents’ sailing West, he’d lost himself in the lure of the sea for long voyages, but he would not allow himself that indulgence when he had a family to protect on dry land.

He’d found freedom out there where all bounds of duty and fears were cut. Everything was easier when it was just him conquering nature, one with the sea, boundless upon that heaving chest devoid of borders, encroaching armies of Darkness, and faces and faces and faces of terrified refugees looking for saviors.

Eärendil did not have the weight of responsibilities Gil-galad or Elwing had placed upon them, but he was Turgon’s grandson and Tuor the Hero’s son. He knew expectations. He knew what it was to have faces turned to him, hoping, desperate: save us, save us, save us!

He didn’t know how Gil-galad endured it.

Elwing’s burden was no less than the Noldo High King’s. The Havens were her city, stuffed with refuges looking to her to save them.

Many of the Sindar had fled East with Oropher after the Kinslaying, or before, after the Dwarves slew Thingol, with Celeborn. But thousands had settled here in the Havens, outnumbering the Noldor refuges who had not already settled with Gil-galad on Balar and the tickle of Humans, five-to-one. These Sindar had taken Elwing, all that was left of Thingol and Lúthien’s blood, as their queen.

It was a heavy burden, yet she endured it, rising every morning with optimism and the drive to do her best by her people.

Eärendil wanted to save everyone too, but he didn’t know how. He did not see with Elwing’s eyes; he did not see hope just around the corner. He saw how close the Enemy pressed now, how close the hammer fall swung, and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know how to save anyone.

“What should we do?” He asked. Elwing was strong, Elwing was decisive, Elwing would know what to do (or at least pretend she had things under control).

Elwing looked away, a line pressing between her brows. The white light of the moon caught in her profile, glittering in the tear tracks dampening her cheeks. She looked terribly young.

Eärendil drew her into his arms. He was selfish to have attempted to shove this burden off onto her. “We will figure it out together. We will figure out…something.”

She didn’t speak for a long moment. She rested her head against his shoulder and let him take comfort and give comfort in the sweep of his fingers through her hair. “It is time I discovered what powers the Silmaril holds.”

His hand jerked those last few inches through its downward comb. He pulled back, face shocked. “You cannot be serious! The Silmaril is dangerous!”

Her mouth hardened. “The Silmaril is my heritage. But more: it is said to hold powers of strengthening body and mind, healing, maybe even the deepening of magic—”

“It is also rumored to have driven your father mad!”

She turned her back on him, facing the sea again. “I have to do something. The Silmaril is our best hope –our best defense— I will not ignore the potential salvation in my grasp. I would be a poor ruler not explore every option.”

“Elwing, no.” The words were not said as a command, but a plea.

Elwing had a backbone of stubbornness to equal his own, but where his stubbornness was turned to hoarding his independence and the protection of his loved ones, hers was for the protection of her people and to having her way when she’d decided on something. She would not be swayed by another’s will. Only through soft councils, and yes, pleading, would she ever turn her face from the path she’d chosen.

He touched her shoulder, but it remained thrust against him. Her eyes flashed back, challenging him from the slender corners of her eyes. “And what do you propose to do instead? If we do nothing our sons will die, and our people will be slaughtered.”

“I…”

She turned and met his eyes fully. When he still found no words, she sighed, shaking her head at him. “No worthwhile advice I see.”

His eyes narrowed. Her tone had edged towards scorn. “At least I do not advise the folly you do.”

She crossed her arms, head lifting. “At least I do not dillydally about. Or worse, run away to go play with my ship.”

“At least I am not proposing we risk everything upon the altar of my pride!”

“At least I am not a coward!”

They stood, chests heaving, jaws thrust out, glaring at each other with the only sound their heated breaths dragging in the silence.

Eärendil forgave first, as he ever did. He held out a hand, “Let us not allow fear and doubt to come between us.”

After a moment she relented, taking his hand. “I did not mean my words.”

“Nor did I. Forgive me.” He pressed a kiss into her temple.

A part of him had meant every word, just as a part of her had meant hers. The words would not have come into their mouths if some deep part of themselves had never entertained them. But neither of them was perfect, and he loved her more than he could ever resent her, just as her love for him was stronger than any contempt.

The words could not be as easily forgotten as they could be forgiven though. Was he a coward for seeking the sea? For longing for it even now? He could close his eyes and feel a deck rolling under his feet, the scent of the sea in his mouth as the wind whipped up the sails, the sky enormous above him, the sea stretching on and on, nothing but freedom as far as his eye could reach.

His blood ran restless in his veins, eager to be gone and have the sea beneath his feet. He clamped down on the longing.

If he had the independence of movement, of life, he had on the sea, this docking of his bones would not itch so under his skin. Was he a coward for wishing these duties and expectations on another?

He looked out the window to the sea waiting for him, calling. He looked West. The idea evolved slowly, but once it reached full-bloom it seem solid, reasonable. Or was it just his eagerness to be out there again? Was the idea he perceived as reasonable in truth him grasping at a salvation he could reach?

“We cannot defeat Morgoth alone.” He started slowly, catching Elwing’s attention. “Only another Vala can defeat a Vala.”

Her jaw firmed. “We will weather his blow as best we can, as we always have. We will endure. We can do nothing else. I will not surrender my hope.”

Eärendil took a step forward, eyes picking up light as his plan flew off his lips. “We cannot win, but there are Powers in this world Morgoth’s equal. They lay only an ocean away. If I could but reach them…”

Elwing’s head tilted up with his approach, eyes reaching to his. “If you could but reach them…”

He picked up her hands, linking their fingers. “If I could but reach them.”

Her fingers tightened in his. “Yes. Yes.” She nodded along to the smile taking his face, one of her own creeping onto her mouth. “If you could but reach them.”

*

Eärendil eased open the door to his boys’ room, thinking he’d find them asleep at this hour, but they sat up together on the bed. He paused, watching them.

Elros had a book spread out over his knees, the smallness of his body magnifying its size. Spread open, it covered him knee-to-knee. Elrond curled into his twin’s side as they looked at the pictures together. “And then the beautiful princess danced before the most evil of evil beings in the whole world, and he fell fast asleep.”

“Why?” Elros’ little brows pinched as he squinted at the illustration of Lúthien and Beren. His voice dipped heavy with skepticism. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Elrond sighed. “It’s magic, Elros.”

“It sounds silly to me.”

Eärendil let the door shut behind him. Twin pairs of grey eyes jumped up. He settled beside them on the bed, trying to ignore the awkwardness in the air between them. He’d only returned from his latest voyage last night, and the air of strangers hung between him and his sons. He’d been gone for months, too long for such young minds to remember their father’s face.

He reached out and tucked a strand of Elros’ hair back behind his ear. When his boy, his baby boy, shied away from the touch of this big stranger who their mother may had told them was their father but whose smell was wholly unfamiliar to them, Eärendil swallowed a shard of pain.

He’d stay longer this time. He promised them, though he did not speak the words outside his heart. This time when he left it would be the last time. He wouldn’t come back from months away empty-handed.

(Just hold on, boys, a few more months away and Daddy will come home to stay, and all this will be a memory. I’ll never leave you again. I swear it. Not even for the sea’s call will I leave you. Just one more time, just once more and I’ll save you from the shadows at the door).

“Do you like reading stories to your brother, Elrond?” Eärendil cautiously leaned closer, pretending to examine the book, but really just wanting to be those few inches closer to holding his boys again.

Elrond pouted. “I like Mother reading them better.”

Eärendil’s arm lifted by degrees to settled about his boys’ tinny shoulders. His fingers came to rest against Elrond’s plump cheek, Elros pressing into his side. Elros looked up at him from beneath dark lashes, but didn’t shrink from the touch. Elrond leaned into it like a cat seeking out a petting.

Eärendil drew them closer. “Has you mother come in to say goodnight yet?”

The boys frowned. It was Elrond who answered. “She never comes to say goodnight anymore.”

Eärendil paused. He’d not noticed anything amiss when Elwing greeted him at the docks yesterday, and he’d not seen her much today for she’d been locked away in councils. But it was hard to notice anything with the Silmaril on her breast, luring every eye and thought to its enthralling beauty. It was hard to breathe in its presence. No, that wasn’t right. The breath had never come so full and sweet into his lungs as when he stood in the Silmaril’s light; his body had never felt more powerful and hale; his spirit never so whole and light. But it was hard to think clearly, yes, that was it. Every thought kept circling back to the Silmaril. It had been a bit of a struggle to even walk away from it.

“Come sit on my lap and I’ll read you the story.” Eärendil pulled the book off Elros’ knees and held up his arms.

His boys exchanged a look. When they peeked back at him, Eärendil grinned. “What, scared?”

Elros scowled. “No.”

Eärendil winked. “I won’t tell a soul if you are.” He raised a hand, palm up, voice grave. “I’ll take the secret to my grave.”

Elrond giggled, and squirmed out from under Eärendil’s arm to come crawl into his lap. Eärendil bounced the knee Elrond had perched on, keeping the light body from falling with his free hand. Elrond squealed with laugher. Eärendil’s fingers slithered to Elrond’s sides and tickled. Elrond flayed about, screeching and laughing, begging Elros to save him.

Elros’ eyes picked up a shine, and he ignored his brother’s pleas in favor of pouncing on Elrond himself with his own wicked fingers. “Get him under the arms! That’s the best spot!”

“Get Elros’ feet!” Elrond wheezed out through laughs, and Eärendil snatched up Elros’ foot to tickle his arch. Elros writhed under the onslaught, laughing so hard he shed a few tears.

Eärendil scooped both his laughing boys up and covered their precious faces with kisses. “I love you, baby,” he kissed into both their cheeks.

Elrond made a face. “We’re not babies!”

Eärendil kissed Elrond’s nose. “You’re my babies. Now come, climb up and let me read you a bedtime story.”

His boys settled into his lap with eagerness, leaning back into his chest as he flipped to the book’s beginning.

He held their warmth and light in his arms until they nodded off. With the care he would have held a newborn in his palms, he coaxed their slumbering bodies under the covers and tucked them in. He kissed their temples, blew out the candles, and crept from the room.

He made his way to his wife and his bedroom. He found her there. She sat on the bed, hunched back to him. He didn’t have to wonder what she cradled in her hands, the wash of singing light answered all the questions.

“Elwing.” He walked to the bed’s edge. She did not look up.

“Come away, Elwing. The boys miss you. Come with me, we’ll watch them sleep for a time.” Still no response. “Elrond and Elros were asking for you,” he tried.

When she still did not speak, he circled the bed’s corner to the far side so he could see her face. Her eyes had not unglued from the jewel in her cupped palms. The moment he drew close enough to see, she jerked away from the light and slipped the Silmaril back into the casket she once kept it in always.

She hid it away from him, raising agitated eyes to his. “Just give me a moment!”

He stared down at her, looking at the tension running through her whole body, wound so tight it vibrated. “I think you should come—”

“I am not answerable to you! I am the queen of the Sindar!”

He took a cautious step forward, making to take a seat beside her on the bed, but she sprung up and paced away. She’d taken the Silmaril in its casket with her, clutching it to her breast.

“Maybe it would be best if you took a break from wearing the Silmaril—”

She spun away, skirts swirling about her. “I’ll thank you to stay out of my business! The Silmaril belongs to me, no one else. I’ll not have you making designs upon it!.”

The door slammed closed behind her.

*

Eärendil didn’t see much of Elwing over the next weeks. Duties of rule kept her locked away in council chambers and running from one thing to the next. Eärendil spent his time with his boys. He took them for afternoons on the beach, ran around with them in the city, to the market and the stables to experience their first horse ride. They even went cannoning in the Northern marshes where they hunted frogs and he whispered to their wide-eyes as he pointed out alligator noses in the water, and held his boys waists as they leaned out of the boat to watch the fishes and turtles playing below.

Was he shrinking his duties to their people to spend every minute with his boys? He supposed so. He didn’t care. He’d missed so much already, he had to snap up every moment he had left with them before he took to the sea again, seeking all of their salvation.

He tried to convince Elwing to join them, but she pursed her lips and told him she had no time for play. Her duties did occupy most of her time, but he had caught her sitting alone, staring into the Silmaril for who knew how long too many times to believe she didn’t have time for them if she could just put that jewel down long enough.

There came a night, after he’d kissed his boys goodnight and come to find her yet again gazing into that jewel, that he’d had enough. He marched across the room to where she sat with the Silmaril in her cupped palms.

Her head jerked up, and she tried to hide it as she ever did. He’d have none of it. No more.

“Enough, Elwing!” He got his hands about the casket. The lid had not been sealed shut yet, and Elwing dove for the Silmaril within with a snarl. His fingers were faster, and snatched the Silmaril up.

She lunged after it. Their hands collided. The Silmaril came loose. It flew out of Eärendil’s hand and went spinning across the floor, tinkling like glass across the stones.

Eärendil wasn’t prepared for the slap. Elwing put all her strength into it, and it snapped his head around, forcing him back a step. His hand flew to his cheek. He couldn’t…couldn’t believe she’d hit him.

His cheek smarted and he looked into the eyes of a stranger. Her eyes burn, burn, burned. There was nothing natural in that fire. “I…I’m just trying to help you.”

“I see though you!” She raised a shaky finger to point at him. “You want it for yourself!”

His hands came up, palms out. “No—”

“I’ll not give it up!” She inched toward the Silmaril, eyes flickering back to it again and again. “It is my brothers, my father, my mother! I have a right—”

“Elwing,” he said very slowly. “The Silmaril is a jewel, not your family.”

Her nose came up. “You know nothing.”

“It’s a cursed jewel, Elwing. And I am not going to stand by and let it destroy you!” He made for the Silmaril again, determined to put an end to this madness once and for all.

“No! I won’t let you take it from me!” She dove for it, scrambling across the floor like some kind of beast.

“Stop this, Elwing! Stop!” He followed her to the floor, chasing after it. His hand closed over it first.

“Give it to me! It’s mine!!” She launched herself at him.

Her strength took him aback. Her body, thrown against his, nails clawing into his arm, threw him down, his back hitting the stones. She jumped on him, legs wrapping about his waist, nails carving grooves into the wrist that twisted the Silmaril ever away from her.

He looked into her face and saw only madness. In desperation, he launched the Silmaril into the air, sending it arcing across the room. She tried to fly after it, but he caged her against his chest. She writhed against him, but he kept her pressed tight against him.

He tasted tears, and knew them for his own. “Shh, shh, my love. Let it go. Just lie here with me a moment, just lie here. Close your eyes. It’s just you and me, just you and me.” He kissed the line of her silver hair meeting her brow, her clawing hands, her snarling lips. “Close your eyes, my love, and just lie here with me.”

Her struggles seemed to last an eternity, but then there were tears in her eyes and her hands did not claw to get away but to pull him closer. Her body heaved with sobs. “Help me, help me, Eärendil. I can’t—I can’t—”

“Shh,” his lips pressed into her temple. “I’m here, I’m here.”

She shuddered against him, going limp but for her fingers still sunk into his arms as if she would drown without the anchor of his body.

“I don’t know how this happened.” He smoothed a hand down her hair, feeling the delicate shape of her head against his palm. “I’m sorry, Eärendil, I wanted so much to save—but I’ve failed everyone—”

“No, it was I who failed. I should never have left you alone. Forgive me.”

She shook her head, cheek still pressed into his chest. “Your task is vital. I see it, more with each passing year, each month, each day: we can’t win this war. You must reach Valinor. You have to.”

Eärendil sighed. “I know, but I can’t leave you and the boys either.”

Her head lifted from his chest. She balanced her weight on an elbow and looked down into his face. “I’ll try harder. I’ll be on my guard against the Silmaril’s influence now—”

“What? No. We have to hide it, get rid of it—” She stiffened against him. He paused, searching her face, and tried again, slowly now. “If we put it somewhere we’ll never be able to reach it, somewhere far from us, its poison—”

“It is not poison, it is beauty itself!”

Eärendil backtracked, holding up a hand. “Alright, alright. But don’t you see we have to get rid of it?”

“If you think I’ll surrender it to the Fëanorions—”

“That wasn’t what I was suggesting.” He wanted to though. Elwing would never get it back if it was in the Fëanorions’ hands. Better the Fëanorions then Morgoth. “If you would give it to me, I’ll hide it somewhere—”

“No.” She yanked herself out of his arms.

“Elwing,” he followed her into a seated position. “You promised you’d try.”

“I—I will. I just can’t…can’t be parted from it. I’ll only wear it in public. I’ll lock it in the box again, and won’t take it out for anything else.”

“Elwing—”

“I promise, Eärendil.” She took his hand, holding it in her two small ones. “It will be different now.”

He sighed, running a hand down his face. He looked into her pleading eyes, but for all her promises he could not forget the madness he’d seen there. “I don’t like the idea of you wearing it at all.”

“Eärendil—”

“No, listen.” He settled his free hand over the huddle of their clasped ones. “I understand you’re not ready to let it go entirely, but taking it out of that casket, it’s dangerous, Elwing. We need to keep it locked away in there, not taking it out for anything, not a public appearance, nothing.”

Her mouth tightened. “This is my decision—”

Not this time. “That is the way it has to be, Elwing.”

She blinked. He never spoke to her with that steel in his voice. She could still refuse him; she was no Noldo woman bound by the conventions of Noldorin society to follow her husband’s will if he imposed it. Elwing was queen of the Sindar and carried more political power than he. He held her gaze anyway, pulling up all the love he held for her, all his fear of what that jewel was doing to her, all his pain at hearing his boys’ pinched mouths say their mother never came to kiss them goodnight anymore.

A frown worked itself between Elwing’s brows, but she nodded, slowly, keeping her eyes on Eärendil’s. “Very well. I shall lock it up and never take it out.”

All the breath whooshed out of Eärendil’s lungs, and a wide smile lifted his face. He pulled her into his arms, kissing her hairline. “Thank you. I think...I think everything might really be alright now.”


	2. Chapter 2

Eärendil on the purchasing of whores (or how to convince the Valar to save the world)  
Chapter 2

Eärendil sent the ball soaring down the beach, and Elros flew after it, little legs pumping. Eärendil raced after, keeping pace with his boy. “Watch out, Daddy’s gonna get it!”

“No! I’m gonna beat you!” Elros sent his father a ferocious scowl, pushing himself faster.

Eärendil laughed, and saw his perfect chance coming up. A piece of driftwood was all but buried in the sand. As he leapt over it, he pretend to get his feet tangled up and fell face down in the sand. Eärendil let out a dramatic cry, and surged up again, but Elros had already reached the ball.

Elros set the ball on his hip, and turned to give Eärendil a look. “I’m not stupid, Daddy. I know you were just pretending to fall.”

“Ah, that’s my clever boy.” Eärendil scooped Elros up, ball and all. “I was being silly, baby. Forgive me?” He turned big eyes on his son.

Elros’ bit his lip, the corners of his mouth pulling up. He shook his head, unable to get a ‘no’ out without smiling. Eärendil squeezed his son to his chest and started peppering Elros’ face with kisses and pleas for forgiveness until Elros broke and started giggling.

A squeal turned both their heads towards the sea. Elrond had forgone a game of ball to collect seashells with his mother. He seemed to have abandoned the task for a drip into sea. The waves rolled in and out, lifting him up and down where he lay on his belly in the sand. Elwing stood next to him, dress tucked into her belt to let the waves reach her ankles and calves.

Eärendil smiled, heart singing at the sight. Elwing had kept her promise. The Silmaril had gone back into its casket, and though he knew she was tempted to bask in its light again, she’d resisted. It had been over a month of their new life as a family again, but this was the first time Elwing was able to pull herself away from her duties for an entire day with their boys, and Eärendil was determined today would be perfect.

“I am hungry, Daddy, can we eat lunch yet?”

Eärendil bounced Elros in his arms. “Let’s ask your mother and Elrond if they’d like a break.”

Eärendil made his way over, bare feet sinking deep into the white sand. Elwing greeted them with a smile, and reached out her moon-pale arms for their boy. Eärendil passed Elros to her, and watched her press a kiss into Elros’ cheek, before sweeping her eyes up to his.

The moment their eyes connected hers went blank and her body stiff.

“Elwing!” Eärendil surged forward, catching Elros as he slipped from his mother’s limp arms. He caught Elros up in his arms, smoothing his hand down Elros’ thin back until the fright of the fall had passed.

Elwing stood frozen, eyes empty as she stared into a world outside the present. Eärendil had seen the foresight come upon her outside of dreams before, but it was rare.

“Elrond, come here, baby!”

Elrond’s head popped up at the call, a pout forming on his face until he caught sight of his mother’s face.

He ran to Eärendil, pressing his little body against his father’s legs. “What’s wrong with Mommy?”

“Nothing that will not right itself in a moment.” Eärendil dropped his hand into Elrond’s soft hair, and guided his boys from the water. “Stay here while I get your mother.”

He left them on the dry sand, and waded back into the water for Elwing. She didn’t respond to his touch, but he’d not expected her too. She did not resist when he pulled her forward, one slow step at a time, out of the water.

Eärendil settled his family on the blanket they’d meant to use for their picnic. Elwing still had not come out for the trance, and her unresponsiveness frightened the boys. Eärendil pulled them into his lap, putting his arms around them, wishing he could tuck them up against his chest and keep them safe from every hurt in the world. Let them never know pain. A hopeless prayer, but one every parent could not help sending.

“Mommy’s going to be fine, just fine.” He kissed their brows, and they buried their faces deeper into his chest.

“Can—can you tell us a story, Daddy?”

“Course, baby. Shall I tell you about how your grandpa Tuor met one of the Sea-gods?” He kept their minds off the empty eyes of their mother until Elwing came back to the world with a jolt, almost toppling forward from where he’d arranged her like a doll on the blanket.

“Eärendil!” She reached out for him, desperation twisting her face.

“I’m here, love.” He took her hand, pulling her over to his huddle with the boys.

“Eärendil, Eärendil,” she squeezed his hand, holding on to him like she would fall away into a void of nothing if he ever let her go. “They’re coming, they’re coming! You have to hurry. We don’t have much time left now—”

“Ewing, not in front of the boys.” He kept his voice gentle, she was in distress, but he wouldn’t talk of such terrors before their boys.

Her eyes flew over their faces, and she took in a shaky breath. “Forgive me, boys. Mommy had a bad dream, but it’s passed now. It’s passed.” She closed her eyes, turning her face away.

“Elros, Elrond, why don’t you help get the meal set up?”

“Yes, Daddy.” Their replies were subdued, but they no longer looked so shaken now their mother didn’t resemble a soulless husk more than a living person.

With the boys occupied, Eärendil pulled Elwing into his side, guiding her head down to his shoulder. She shuddered against him, taking in deep gulps of air. He combed his fingers through her hair. “Will you tell me of what you saw when we are alone?”

She nodded against him. “It’s…Eärendil, what I dreamed before, it comes close now. You must hurry, my love. You must find Valinor.”

His arm tightened about her. He’d known the day would come when he had to leave his family again, but he’d hoped it was still some months out on the horizon. He’d had so little time with his boys, and Elwing needed him now more than she’d ever needed him before. She was strong, but the weight upon her, the weight. What if the pressure became too much and she reached again for the false strength of the Silmaril?

The Silmaril had not only ensnared her, it had given her people hope and strength just as she’d predicted. When she wore it upon her breast, hearts lifted. Healers reported even the most grievous wounds of darkness healed swifter, and soldiers marched out to the borders with prowess soaked into their skin, down to their muscles and bones, and found they could endure longer and accomplish greater feats then ever before.

But Eärendil felt in his heart that the Silmaril would be their doom. Doriath had flourished during those few years Dior wore the Silmaril, but the price, the price… The jewel was cursed. Everything it gave them would turn to ash in their mouths before the end.

In the end though, Elwing’s words swayed him. She told him he needed to be strong. He needed to make this sacrifice as much as he didn’t want to leave their boys, and she was right, he knew she was right. What were a few more years with his boys if at the end of that they were murdered before they’d even had a chance to live?

She’d sworn to him she would not go back to the Silmaril. But it was not enough, he’d needed more assurances. He’d made her swear that if he was not back within the year, she’d take the boys and run so far away from the war its echo could never touch their sons.

Elwing was reluctant to let the promise pass her lips. (‘If your mission is not successful it won’t matter how far we run, Morgoth will rule all the world—’ ‘But not yet, not until our boys have had a chance at life.’). Finally she’d given her word, with the understanding that it would be all her people fleeing with her. The unspoken judgment that his own words had been dishonorable in their selfish focus on only their family went unspoken. He already knew she thought him lacking in honor and the serving of his duties. He didn’t care. As long as Elrond and Elros were safe, he didn’t care about anything or anyone else.

He kissed his crying, clinging boys goodbye. Leaving them like that, promises (‘Daddy will be home soon.’) he didn’t know when he could keep, having to unwrap Elros’ fingers from his tunic because his son would not let him go (‘No, Daddy, no, don’t leave!’), was the hardest thing he’d ever done.

He wept to leave them, no matter how he promised himself he would be strong for his boys, he couldn’t stop his voice was cracking and his face from crumpling. He swore again –nails cutting grooves into his palms as he stood upon the deck, the sounds of Elrond’s quiet weeping and Elros’ wails turning into angry shouts the farther and farther Eärendil slipped away echoing in his ears long after he could have physically heard the pain in his son’s voice—that this would be the last time.

(I promise, boys, I promise. I’ll be home soon.)

*

A light was spotted, coming out of the East. At first they mistook it for a star, but it moved like no other star they’d ever seen, and they were sailors, they knew the night sky like a farmer knew ever pit in his field. They watched the light grow, drawing ever closer. The sun rose behind it, but the light did not go out. It burned, brighter and brighter, with every passing hour. Whatever it was, it was coming right at them.

It took longer than it should have to admit the light was a Silmaril; such a conclusion simply didn’t make sense. Why would a seagull –for their sharp-eyes could make out the bird’s shape now—have a Silmaril bound to its breast? But there came the point when there were no denials left.

Eärendil stood, hand wound in the rigging, foot braced on the ship’s railing, face turned East. They could have out-sailed the bird, for he could see it flagged, worn down by exhaustion, and no wonder! They had not passed even a scrap of land for weeks! He did not give the order though, but let the bird come.

It dove for him. Eärendil held up his arms and caught it against his breast. The moment their skin touched, the bird’s entire frame shuddered, and Eärendil was thrown back from his perch by the sudden weight. He blinked up from the place his back met the deck, and found himself looking into his wife’s eyes.

“Eärendil,” she gasped, and collapsed, driven passed the last line of exhaustion.

Eärendil picked her up and carried her down to his cabin where he laid her out on his bed. As he pulled the bedcovers over her, he found his hands shook and his jaw hurt from how hard he’d been clenching it.

He didn’t sleep, there could be no rest. He prowled the deck, becoming increasingly ashamed of the way he snapped at his men, but unable to stop himself. Where were his boys? His baby boys? What was the Silmaril doing around Elwing’s neck again after she swore, she swore…

Elwing woke after two full days of sleep.

Eärendil had been looking out the portal window when he heard her stirring. He crossed to her and fell to his knees beside her bed before she’d even finished blinking the sleep from her eyes.

He didn’t dare grasp her hand. He might break her bones with the strength of this terror twisting him up inside. “Elwing—” His voice got lost in the storm inside him. He trembled, whole body shaking. Her eyes flickered to his face, and then slid away. “Where are our boys? Where—where are my Elros and Elrond? What—what happen—where are our babies?”

“They’re gone.” The words were no more than a whisper, but they crashed against him like a tidal wave of darkness.

“You—no, no, what—what are saying—what—I cannot—”

Her hand rose and closed over the Silmaril hanging from her neck. She didn’t meet his eyes. She turned her face away, towards the cabin’s wall. “They’re gone, Eärendil.”

“But you—you’re…how did you escape? They must…they must be…something, someway—”

Nothing she said made sense. Her words, they weren’t fitting inside his head right. Gone? No. No that wasn’t right. Something…some mistake had been made, somewhere. His boys, his boys couldn’t be…there’d been some mistake. Not his baby boys.

She turned to him then, mouth a slash of white grief across her face. “They’re gone. The Fëanorions came. They were the shadows at the door, the blood on the streets, the screams I dreamt again and again.”

“The Fëanor—what? That’s not possi—” His eyes fixed on the jewel. “That’s not possible.”

Her face twisted in an ugly snarl. “Of course it is! They’re murderers! They murdered my entire family!”

“No. It’s not possible,” his voice came from a long long way off, and he realized, distantly, that he’d stood and now looked down at her where she lay, twisted in hate. “It’s not possible because they would have come for the jewel. But you would have given it to them. You would have given it too them before they got there. You would have…you would have…”

Her fist tightened on the Silmaril.

“You told me, you told me, before we were married, remember? That day I took you sailing around Balar and we kissed for the first time? That day you told me a part of you hated your father for not giving the Fëanorions the jewel, for not saving his family.”

“Eärendil, you don’t understand—”

“You would have given the Fëanorions the Silmaril if it was a choice between our boys and it. You would have. Tell me you would have! Say it, say it!” His voice broke on a scream.

Her face hardened, jaw setting as if in stone. She rose from the bed, neck arched, and he could see the shadow of her crown riding upon her brow. “I did what I thought was right for my people—”

“Shut up.”

“You may have shrunk from every duty, failed every orphaned child and widowed mother depending upon you, but I—”

“Shut up!” He lunged at her.

She stumbled back a step, eyes flying wide. His hands stopped inches from her long, proud neck, fingers curling.

The shadows ate her face where she’d been backed into the wall. She met his eyes, her own nothing but a glitter of light in shadowed planes. “Will you strike me husband for doing what you were never strong enough to do? Or will it be because I am human and failed like my father failed, and my great-grandfather failed, and so many along with them?”

He stared at her. He could imagine her neck between his fingers, but the thought of it only sickened him. He felt heavy, so heavy, his bones tired. His boys, his baby boys.

His hands dropped. He turned away from her, walking to the door. Every step felt like he dragged boulders behind him. There was no light left in his heart. Everything had gone dark.

Her voice called him back. “Eärendil, husband—”

“Do not call me that again. I have no wife.” The door shut behind him.

*

Elros pelted down the beach, face bleached of color, eyes huge in his face, tears clinging to his cheeks. He ran over bones the scraps of flesh still clung too, scavenger birds flung themselves into the air before his flight. Blood had splashed up on his pale, skinny legs, coating the soles of his feet. Eärendil ran towards his boy, arms outstretched, reaching, reaching, reaching… Elros’ fingers stretched for him, face so full of panic Eärendil’s heart shattered. “Daddy, help me!” But he could not reach his boy. Elros was forever those last few feet outside his arms.

The thing holding a knife to Elrond’s throat was more Orc than Elf, but on its breast was stitched the star of Fëanor, mocking him. The creature wore a feral grin that would have looked at home on a wolf with bloody lips and chunks of flesh caught between its fangs. Its teeth glinted sharp in the sunlight like the knife’s blade at his boy’s throat. Elrond screamed. Eärendil screamed with him.

Eärendil opened his eyes on darkness. The ship creaked around him, rocking with the roll of waves. He could just make out the sway of the unlit hanging lantern above him. He couldn’t summon the energy to rise. He rolled over and pulled the blanket over his head, cocooning himself in deeper darkness.

Falathar, his second-in-command, would come for him with the sun’s rising. He always did. Eärendil had vague memories of walking the ship’s deck, giving orders, looking over maps and making decisions, but he watched them through a haze, like a cloud of smoke. It might have been weeks, maybe months, since Elwing had brought the news of his boys’ deaths. Eärendil no longer measured the passing of time. It didn’t matter anymore. Nothing did.

He kept finding just enough energy everyday to map their course as they fought their way West, but only just.

Elwing had not been mistaken every time she accused him of not caring enough for their people. He would never love them like she did, like Gil-galad or Cirdan or his mother had loved their people. Eärendil was no king, no great ruling lord, and that was just fine with him. Some part of him still wanted to save all those people, but the rest of him had gone numb. Nothing could drive this darkness away. It pressed down on his chest like a mountaintop, until he lay, suffocating, in his bed as one slain. His heart had been slain. All that was left of him was this sack of bones that dragged itself through one colorless day after the next.

*

There came a day when he looked up and saw the sun setting in a blaze of glory. The sea lay still as glass, the sails limp. He walked, slowly, to the railing, as one awakened from a deep sleep.

He touched the smooth wood of the rail, re-learning its curve. The sea filled his lungs as he looked upon a sky shot through with red and purple. A colony of flying fish arched over the water, upsetting its perfect stillness, to dive back in.

Eärendil turned to find Falathar at his side. “How long have I been…?”

Falathar met his gaze, his own solemn. “Over a year, captain.”

Eärendil closed his eyes. “Elwing?”

“She rarely leaves her cabin. The jewel’s light is seen almost constantly coming through the crack under her door.”

“I see.” Eärendil turned back to the sea. The flying fish danced across his vision in arcs of silver.

He watched them until the last of the gold and red had slipped from of the sky, then he left the rail and went in search of the woman he’d once called wife.

He found her hunched over the jewel she’d sold their sons for. The door shut behind him, but she did not hear. He walked to her, the boards creaking under his footsteps, but she did not hear. He called her name, once, twice, thrice, but she did not hear.

Her hair, her beautiful silver hair, fell about her in clumps, and he could smell her unwashed flesh from an arm’s length away. She swayed, ever so slightly, like a moored ship rising and falling with the roll of the sea. Her eyes never flicked from the all-consuming light of the gem. It ate her up, all of her, and spat nothing but this waif of a woman back out.

His heart softened. She had loved them. They had not only been his boys, they had been theirs. This shell of a person was nothing but a thrall, an addict. He found compassion in his breast for her, and came to his knees beside her.

He cupped her hands holding the Silmaril she’d lost everything for. Her skin pressed cold and paper-thin against his, but knit with light. It was as if the light of the Silmaril had replaced the blood in her veins, and the skin of her hands was nothing but the covering of feathers over its blinding light. It was beautiful, even now, even as his mouth filled with loathing for its poison, still it was so hard to take his eyes off. But it was possible because its light was nothing to the light his sons had shone with. Its beauty was nothing to the beauty of a single smile from their lips.

He did not try to net her attention again with words. She would not hear. Asking her to surrender the jewel would get him nowhere. He could see nothing in her eyes but its light staring back.

He would free her from its thralldom. He would cast the cursed thing over the side of his ship and call it good riddance!

He struck like a diving hawk, snatching the jewel from the cup of her hand. She screamed, but he was already bolting for the door. He would dump it overboard and then she would be free.

His hand slipped on the door’s knob, the metal strangely wet. His breath curled in the air before him in puffs of white, and it felt like icicles grew on the knobs of his spine. He heard the air shifting behind him, something flying through it. He spun in time to be pinned to the door by claws that had once been nails. They sunk into the flesh of his chest.

He cried out, maybe from the pain, maybe from the shock of what his mind told him was Elwing, but his eyes refused to belief. Her hair flared out about her, bristling like a crest of feathers. Her eyes flashed gold with nothing human behind them, and her face twisted into ugliness. She screeched at him, as if she’d lost the ability of speech, and one of her claws slashed across his chest. His cry this time was all pain as the claws ripped into his skin, and his blood splattered over Elwing’s face.

The sting of her claws pinning him retreated, and he slumped against the door. Elwing crumbled on the floor, a terrible sound wrenched from her throat. Whatever it was that had taken her and stolen her humanity had slunk back again. Now she was a waif of a woman curled into herself and weeping on the floor.

Eärendil pulled the shredded fabric of his tunic back with a grimace. The claw marks had not cut as deeply as he’d feared. He set about stripping off his tunic and binding his chest with a torn-up bed sheet. He could hear Elwing sobbing behind him. He couldn’t bear to look at her yet.

“Eärendil, please. I’m sorry! Forgive me, forgive me. I did not see—” She crawled across the floor to grasp his leggings, winding her fingers in their fabric. “Help me, Eärendil. I can’t—I can’t stop myself. I can’t—Ah!” She folded into herself, rocking.

He closed his eyes and let his hand fall into her hair, cradling her skull. “Shh, now, shh. I’m going to help you. You aren’t alone anymore.” He slipped to his knees beside her and pulled her thin body against him. It was like she’d been stuffed with cotton, so little did she weigh in his arms.

“What have I done, what have I done? I left them. I just left them, my children. Oh gods, my children!”

He couldn’t bear to hear this. “Stop.”

But she didn’t listen to the choked word. “I ran away with the Silmaril. I didn’t go back. The Fëanorion, he said…he said he had the boys, that if I just...just gave him the Silmaril, but I didn’t…I didn’t believe him. They were murderers, don’t you see, Eärendil?” She lifted her face to him, fingers scrabbling at his neck as horror and hope ignited in his chest. “They were murderers. I couldn’t give them the Silmaril. They were only lying. They’d kill our sons before they gave them up even if I’d given them the Silmaril. Don’t you see? I had no choice. They were liars. Liars.”

Eärendil had stood, he couldn’t say when, he could hardly see through the light rocketing through him, blooming and dying a hundred births and deaths with every thought his racing mind birthed and buried. But the light would not be doused; the hope would not be silenced with any cautious reason. His boys might still be alive. There was hope, just a sliver of one, but there was hope.

“Where—where are you going?”

He’d reached the door, feet walking upon light. He looked back at her over the curve of his shoulder. “To turn my ship around. Back to Endor.”

“Eärendil,” Elwing pieced herself back together, wiping the tear tracks from her cheeks and bringing herself to her feet with shaky hands. “We can’t go back. Don’t you think I haven’t thought of doing just that every moment I was not—” Thinking about the Silmaril and nothing but the Silmaril. She did not have to say it, they both knew it. She licked her lips. “But listen to me, Eärendil.”

His hand tightened on the doorknob. His eyes dropped and saw she held the Silmaril once again in her fist. When had she picked it up? When she crawled across the floor begging to be forgiven for sacrificing their sons for it?

She took a step forward, the hand not consumed with the Silmaril reaching out, as if to restrain him. “The boys are either dead already or the Fëanorions are keeping them hostage for the Silmaril.”

Eärendil’s jaw clenched. He would not entrain the likelihood of his boys’ deaths. He couldn’t. Not again. He couldn’t go through that again. “Then we will give them the Silmaril and get our boys back.”

Elwing’s eyes flashed gold, lip pulling back in a snarl. “No! It’s mine!” The spell passed a moment latter, leaving her white-faced and shaken. “I don’t think…Eärendil, I can’t. I don’t think I can let it go.”

“Yes you can.” He turned fully back to her and took a slow step forward. His brow pinched tight with earnestness. “It’s for our boys. I know, if you just try, if you think of your love for them—”

She turned away, her back hunching against the words.

“Elwing. Our boys—”

“Will die anyway if we don’t gain the Valar’s help!” She spun back around, hair cutting an arch through the air. “Don’t you see, Eärendil? Even if we went back now and purchased our sons’ freedom with the Silmaril –if they are even still alive—it wouldn’t matter because they would be dead along with the rest of the world in a few short years. We would still never get to see them grow up, never get to see them fall in love, or hold their firstborns, because they would be dead!”

She crossed to him where he stood frozen, numbed by the truth of her words. “We’re so close. I can feel it. Just a little longer and I know we’ll make it. We have to keep trying. If we don’t save the world now, no one else will. We have no choice, Eärendil, we must press on.”

He shook his head, too broken to speak. Close? He’d been sailing these Western Seas since his parents left, and he’d yet to find a way into Valinor. A veil lay over it, a fence. Anytime he drew too close, a storm would whip up and only his and his crew’s skill saved them from drowning. It wasn’t a question of where Valinor was; it was how to get in.

“No, Eärendil, listen. Feel.” She picked up his hand and shocked him by pressing it into the Silmaril’s flesh. “Feel, Eärendil, open yourself to it and you will see the way as I do.”

“No!” Eärendil tried to twist away from the jewel’s pulsing heat. Elwing’s nails dug in.

“For our boys. You must do this for our boys.” Her words stilled him and snapped his eyes up to hers. Conviction burned within them, absolute faith that he would see the way as she had if only he let this cursed jewel inside.

He closed his eyes, shuddering at the thing’s flesh against his. For his boys.

Eärendil had never been one gifted with a strong connection to his fëa, as those Elves most powerful in the working of the deep knowledge, or magic as the Edain named it, possessed. He squeezed his eyes shut now and sought out the Elven in his blood as he never had before. He found it, for it had always been there if he’d cared to look. Then it was just instinct that guided him as he sent his awareness out, into the Silmaril.

The warm pulse of a heartbeat surrounded him, red, red like blood. Or like the inside of a heart. Or like fire. Inside this heartbeat there was no fear, no despair, no burdens, only safety, light, and beauty unimagined. He caught glimpses of entire worlds, but did not tarry to be ensnared; he pushed forward, seeking answers.

Two figures flittered in the corner of his eye, laughter, the scent of innocence. He spun, hands coming up, reaching, reaching, reaching for the two lights of purest blue, more beautiful than any sapphire, any summer sky. He caught them against his chest. Pointy elbows wrapped about his neck, little faces pressed into the crook of his neck, and the most beloved voices in the world chanted: ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.’

He buried his nose in their hair and inhaled them. His boys, his boys.

If it was possible for such beauty to grow more so, it did in that moment. The heartbeat surrounding him softened, its hypnotizing rhythm loosening its coil. It felt like an awareness watched him holding his babies, and yearned along with him. And then he was clutching his boys tight to his chest as the world tilted. Highways of light raced out, East and West, a cluster of confusion as two cravings tore it apart. He saw seven faces, a dozen different times, each time a little older. It wanted, the Silmaril wanted, something within it writhed, its light blazing and blazing until Eärendil thought he would go mad with the need for these faces. East and West. Two roads burned like a map into Eärendil’s mind. East to the last two sons of Fëanor who had his boys, or West down the road leading to the Halls of the Dead in Valinor where the remaining sons and the Silmarils’ creator were housed.

The torment inside the jewel became too much to bear as the world inside it heaved like an earthquake broke it, and a hurricane ravished it in flashes of cutting white light. These weren’t his boys in his arms, just an illusion. He had to let them go and return to the world of the living so he could save his real boys from a life ended before it even began.

The path to Valinor remained painted in Eärendil’s head even after he pulled fee of the Silmaril.

At the time, it seemed the right choice to press on to Valinor. Had not everything Elwing said been the truth? Their sons would never reach adulthood if they didn’t save them and the world along with them.

But Eärendil could not forgive himself for this decision, this terrible mistake. It would have been better if he’d thrown himself into the sea and swam back to his sons, dying in the attempt, leaving their Holy Mission to his crew, then turn his back on his sons’ fate.

Logically, he made the only choice he could, but the rationalizations did not help in the long lonely years after when he learned the full-measure of what his sons suffered because of his choice. The world may say he made the right choice (wasn’t it justified, didn’t he save the world?) but in his heart he would always believe he chose wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

Eärendil on the purchasing of whores (or how to convince the Valar to save the world)  
Chapter 3

Eärendil’s shoulders rolled as he dipped the oars in and out of the sea, heaving the light craft ever closer to the shore. It seemed to be taking an unnaturally long time to reach the white beaches, but everything about this place was unnatural.

Gulls cried on the wind, and the ocean sighed against the sand, but no living thing moved in the city.

Eärendil didn’t know what he’d expected when he thought of Valinor, but it wasn’t this. He supposed if he thought of anything he thought of light. But there was no reason Valinor would have a greater claim on the light now the fabled Two Trees had been put out.

The city, while dead, was beautiful to be sure. Walls and towers like polished pearl, ships bobbing along the docks like the cupped hands of fair ladies, and the contrast of the pure blue of the ocean rolling up again those perfect beaches with the green lands beyond delighted the eye. Beautiful, more beautiful even than fallen Gondolin, but it didn’t feel real.

Eärendil dipped the oars in, pulling closer, and it felt like he approached some alien land. He rowed towards a frozen city, like a city of glass, dwelling outside time, outside the bounds of the world, untouched by the terrible agony and grief Endor groaned under, its soil stained red from all the blood spilt upon her.

But Valinor was a world untouched by Endor’s joys and victories. For how could one know the sweet joy that went down like swallowing the sun when one had not known the freezing cold of despair? How could one know the kind of beauty that one pressed against their heart and carried with them like a lamp, without the pain casting long shadows throwing that beauty into sharp, heady relief? What kind of life was one lived in perpetual peace and unending safety without the fear and desperation and grasping hunger for life born out of fear?

Eärendil understood now, looking at this frozen land, why so many of his mother’s people had walked away from paradise. Paradise was for those who had already endured the long road of life, already faced down the lions and pitfalls, and already tasted the beauty found in the midst of darkness that eclipsed any found in peace.

It took him another half-hour of rowing to realize the shore was still as distant as it had been a half-hour before. He wasn’t moving any closer. Yet his oars shoveled water, the sea rolled under him, and his shoulder muscles and arms could attest to the fact that they were laboring against something.

Eärendil paused, brining the oars up, and scrutinizing the shore line. Still not even a flutter of movement in the city. It was well and truly empty.

He looked back at Vingilótë. Elwing stood on the deck, eyes feasting upon the land they had sacrificed everything to find. His crew too stood at the ship’s rail, but their faces had lost the awe that had washed them all as they drew within sight of the Undying Lands. Falathar’s eyes met his, edged with fear; it was impossible to miss the fact Eärendil should have reached the beach by now.

Eärendil’s gaze drifted back to Elwing. She’d taken to stuffing the Silmaril down the front of her dress, jealously guarding its light from all other eyes but her own. Yet the Silmaril would not be contained in the fabric of her bodice. Its light, though banked, glowed under the white cotton, resting upon her breast like a heart of light.

Eärendil knew what he needed to break through this barrier holding him back from reaching the shore, as much as he abhorred the idea of touching the thing. Perhaps, now, with their mission’s accomplishment ridding upon their fingertips, Elwing could bring herself to give up the jewel, for her people, for her world. But if she could not of her own freewill, he would take it from her by force, for his boys.

After he brought the rowboat back alongside Vingilótë and scalded the ladder up to her deck, he went to stand at Elwing’s shoulder. She turned to meet him, turning the eyes of one he had once loved, once called wife, upon him. He could pity her for what she had become under the thralldom of the Silmaril, he could forgive her and hope for her freedom from the cursed gem, but he could not look into her eyes without hearing the screams of the dream Elrond as his throat was cut, and see the desperation in dream Elros’ eyes as he stumbled over bones towards a father the width of the ocean lay between. But forgiveness was more than he gave himself for allowing that ocean to thrust itself between him and his boys.

Her eyes, the eyes of a pitiful stranger, were feverishly bright, and she said, as if she’d noticed nothing of his struggle against the invisible barrier holding him back, “We made it, Eärendil. We saved the world.”

“No, not yet we haven’t.” He laid a cautious hand upon her shoulder. “Elwing, I once knew a girl who lit hope in the eyes of her people with the flame in her own breast. I once knew a girl who would have done anything, walked any distance, fought any odds, defied any words of the wise who said our fight was hopeless, and led her people into life with only the grit of her will to sustain them. If there is anything of that girl left inside you, then I need her to come out. The moment has come for her to save her people once and for all.” Elwing’s too-thin shoulders shook under his palm. “Elwing, you must give me the Silmaril. I cannot reach Valinor without it.”

Elwing wrenched away from his touch, snarling, face the picture of rebellion. Eärendil’s heart fell heavy as lead into his belly, but he prepared himself. He would have it.

Just when Eärendil made to call his men to his side, Elwing’s pulled up the Silmaril to fist its light in her hand. But the moment her hand closed over it, she froze, face blanking.

He thought a vision of foresight had taken her, but the impression only lasted a heartbeat. Her face was as empty as a statue’s, but the source of her trance betrayed itself with its pulsing light. The Silmaril licked like a flame over her skin, its light alive, slithering, and sinking like chains into her.

Any hope of her surrendering the Silmaril willingly broke like a rabbit’s neck in the hunter’s grip, and he moved to call his men to restrain her. But in that moment, as if moved by another hand, face still blank, she extended the hand fisting the Silmaril to him. It lay cupped in her palm, a surrender.

She spoke, but the voice she spoke with was not her own. The voice dropped deep from her lips, almost a man’s but for Elwing’s higher one threaded through it. The sound of that voice snagged everything about it, Eärendil, his men, even the birds seemed to sit up to listen, it was that compelling.

“Take the Silmaril, and buy the ones who would call themselves the Lords of Arda with the light they have ever coveted.”

If it were anything but the cursed jewel the voice told him to take up, he would have obeyed without question, never mind that it was an echo of the infamous Fëanor speaking with Elwing’s voice. Eärendil felt the voice in the backs of his knees, that place that had gone weak under the ring of command. But Eärendil could not bring his flesh to touch the flesh of the jewel without heaviness in his limbs. This was the jewel that had taken everything from him. He could not suffer its touch without fortifying his mind, and steeling his resolve.

So his hand did not rise to obey, and he questioned instead of buckling to the voice. “You would claim the Valar covet the Silmaril, yet is it not told the Silmaril’s light was born from the Valar’s own work?”

The voice laughed, a sound of genuine amusement that was all the more beautiful for the lack of scorn twisting it. “If that is what they are teaching now, Fingolfinion, then you have been taught wrong. It was indeed the Light of the Two Trees my maker captured, yet from whence did that light originate? If you believe it was Yavanna or any other of the Valar, then you have been misled! The pure, untainted light of the Flame Imperishable that lives now only in my brothers and I was created by Ilúvatar and entrusted to the Valar, not created by them. They have no claim over me or my brothers, for the light within us was never of their making.”

Elwing’s hand, just a puppet’s hand to the mind behind, took Eärendil’s and passed the jewel into his palm. Eärendil’s skin wanted to shrink away from the jewel’s touch, more so because it did not feel like slime or the brither of destructed, but pulsed hot and glorious in his palm. He hated it the more for being as mesmerizing as ever.

“You will not be able to purchase the services of those who sought to make pretty playthings of my creator’s people without my light, Fingolfinion.”

Eärendil’s hand fisted about the Silmaril, jaw clenching. They would see about that. He could do this without the cursed jewel’s assistance!

*

Power sung in the air about the Valar, light shimmered on their skin like garments, and their faces were without doubt the most perfectly sculpted ones Eärendil had ever beheld, but Eärendil did not get down on his knees before him. No awe birthed itself in his chest as he stood in the presence of the most powerful beings on Arda.

In the back of his eyes, overlaying his vision of them, flashed the faces of his terrified sons, of the Healing Houses packed with bodies, of Gil-galad’s head bent as he listened to the report of another year’s merger harvest in lands dying under them, of white towers collapsing and a city of fifty thousand voices screaming with the despair driven out of their lungs as Elves threw themselves from the walls in grief-madness, in desperation not to be taken alive.

He looked into the eyes of the Powers who could have prevented every child from knowing what it was to watch their parents’ murdered, every wife weeping over her husband’s ruined body, every line of funeral piers stretching on and on and on. Any awe soured on his tongue long before it touched the backs of his knees to drop him in submission before the Valar.

But he hid it all, for his boys, and humbled his words before the Powers he sought to move on behalf of a world groaning in agony.

He spoke first with Quenya, the High Tongue of his mother’s people, in his mouth. He spoke of the Exiles’ long defeat, the children born into a world torn by war, and the hills of the dead. He spoke of tears unnumbered. For would not the Valar be moved for the sake of those they claimed to have loved once upon a time, those glorious Noldor?

Manwë returned, face unmoved, weathering the horrors Eärendil painted like a rock will weather a storm: “You come to beg on behalf of rebels? Those who murdered and those who by their inaction were the accomplices of murder? Why should we come to the aid of such as these?”

Eärendil pulled the words back into his chest, caging any further words in defense of his mother’s people. There were many words he could have spoken, of children who had never had a choice when their parent’s made the choice for them, children’s children who had not even been born, and even the Exiles who had chosen and suffered beyond measure, beyond even the merciless whip of justice, for that choice. But he said nothing, for the Valar’s faces were stone. They would not be moved by the plight of the Noldor.

He switched to the tongue of his father’s people, the Hadorions. He spoke on behalf of the Edain who had had no choice, but fought so tirelessly against the Dark Foe and lost everything for it. He spoke of the Hadorions’ slavery, the Bëorians’ and Haladin’s near-extinction, and the bright light and valiant hearts of the Secondborn.

Mandos returned his arguments and pleas with: “The Valar were not tasked with the ordering of the lives of the Children, but as guardians of Arda as a whole. Ilúvatar intended his Children to live out their own lives. It is not the Valar’s place to fight the Children’s battles.”

The hypocrisy of the words turned the breath to mud in Eärendil’s lungs. He could only conclude the Valar cared nothing for the Secondborn.

Last he picked up the tongue of Elwing’s people, and pled the case of the Sindar, Silvan, Falathrim, and Avari. But Manwë returned his words with ones devoid of mercy, or even a scrap of empathy or compassion. The one who would call himself Lord of Arda excused himself and his race from going to war on the behalf of the Twilight Elves with the excuse that these Elves too had made a choice when they chose not to come to Valinor where they could have found peace.

Eärendil perceived the excuses in the Valar’s words. They would not be moved by compassion or even pity. They could only be bought like whores.

Eärendil’s hand went to his collar, and he pulled out the Silmaril hung about his neck. It seemed even the jewel had seen the Valar for what they really were. The moment the Silmaril hit the air, it flashed, dazzling, more brilliant than all the stars in the sky, more glorious than a setting sun, and more flawless than a wash of moonlight. He had to shade his eyes from its light, even as he never wanted to stop staring at it.

Into the aftershock of that blaze of a light so pure it touched the soul, Eärendil read the lust on the Valar’s faces. The Silmaril had spoken truly. And it had displayed its glory like a provocative woman. Anything, anything for the two faces of the seven still drawing breath, even the Valar’s greedy hands upon its flesh.

Eärendil threw the Silmaril down upon the stones, sending it chiming and dazzling to stop at the foot of Manwë’s throne. The Valar’s eyes followed its path like cats following the hopping of a sparrow dawning close and delectable to their jaws.

“Is this your price then? Will you suddenly find pity in your hearts now I have given the Silmaril into your hands?”

Manwë bent and lifted the Silmaril, the first of the encircling Valar to put hands upon its skin. His fingers caressed it. Eärendil learned that day the going price for a Vala.

He learned the going price for himself a week later.

The Valar took a strange liking to him. Eärendil did not understand the root of the Valar’s interest in him until Eönwë explained it centuries later. “You are very beautiful, Eärendil, even by the measure of the Firstborn. The Valar enjoy gazing upon pretty things. They enjoy having those pretty things under their power even more.”

Attracting the Valar’s attention was not a fortunate thing. They wanted to keep gazing upon their new toy for as many years as they wished, so they stripped the toy’s identity and stuffed it into the suit of a Firstborn even if the toy’s heart had lain with its father’s people. They were covetous of their new toy too, and hid it away in an enchanted house from which it could not get out (only at their leisure), and no one else could get in but the woman who was no longer its wife but was also the only living breathing person left to take comfort in outside its captors. So overtime, the toy started fooling itself into believing she could come back, that the toy could heal her and everything would be as it once was between them (except it knew, always, that nothing would ever be the same because the light of its world, its boys, were far far away, if they were even still alive, but the toy didn’t think about that. It would destroy it, everything that was left of it, to even entertain the thought).

The price it took for Eärendil to dance to the Valar’s whims was his boys. It was always going to be his boys.

Eönwë came to him, where Eärendil sat upon the shore of his new prison, gazing East, always East. But no matter how he strained his eyes, they were never going to reach his boys’ faces.

Eönwë took a seat in the sand beside Eärendil, folding up with the grace of a hawk’s wings coming to rest with sleek perfection against its body. Eönwë wore his golden hair loose and tumbling over his shoulders, and his face was as perfectly sculpted as his kin’s: straight, long nose, fine brows, and delicate bones. His blue eyes were as devoid of empathy as his kin’s.

“The Valar have a proposition for you, Eärendil.”

Eärendil wished he could steal his name back from that mouth. He had so little left, let the Valar not take his name into their mouths like they owned it as well.

Eärendil did not speak. He did not want to hear anything the Valar purposed.

“Do you desire to see your sons again?”

Eärendil laughed the laughter of the dead. Did he want to see his boys? That the Valar even had to ask was but one more proof that they understood the hearts of the Children none at all. They were as merciless and compassionless as the deeps of space.

Eönwë’s hand lighting upon his skin killed the laughter. Eärendil jerked his hand out from under the Maia’s, flashing a biting look back. Now the Valar thought they had a right to touch him at their leisure as well?

He found Eönwë’s eyes gazing back at him with something not quite compassion. It was as if the compassion struggled towards the surface but was blocked at its every point, leaving only a cold blue that was not cruel, but not warm. It was like looking into blue with nothing behind it but cool logic, a brain detached from its heart, striving to connect, but unable to scale the distance.

“You have realized by now that the Valar do nothing without a price paid. You may see your sons again, but only if you are willing to pay.”

Eärendil’s jaw trembled under the violence of his clenching. “And what is the price the Valar would have of me?”

It burned that the Silmaril had spoken so truly. He would be a plaything of gods. Yet with eyes-wide-open he’d walk into whatever they demanded of him. Anything, anything, for just one more moment with his boys, one more kiss pressed into their cheeks, one more chance to whisper his love into their beloved ears.

“When the Ainur go to war, you may accompany us. You may walk upon Endor’s breast again and seek out your sons if you agree to the task the Valar have designed for you."

"What task?" He asked cautiously, even through he already knew whatever it was he'd do it.

"They wish you to take the Silmaril up into the skies every night, as a new star.”

“Why? What possible benefit –besides an illustration of their power over me—could this give them?”

Eönwë’s mouth twisted into a smile that resembled a piece of rotting driftwood. “Power. It always comes down to power, Eärendil. The Valar possess the Silmaril, and they want everyone to know it.”

Eärendil’s eyes narrowed at the derision sunk deep as the ocean’s bones into Eönwë’s words. “You expect me to believe you openly scorn your kin in the hearing of one of your race’s prisoners? What game do you play, Maia?”

Eönwë rose, the movement fluid as water spilling down a cliff’s side. “I do not expect you to believe anything. Now, what answer do you give?” Blue eyes as impassive and unmoved as ice looked down at him.

Eärendil rose to his feet, though he did not reach the Maia’s lofty height. “My acceptance. What choice do I have, plaything of the gods as I am?”

Eönwë’s mouth curled up without humor, but devoid of scorn, and his hand rose to this throat. A gold necklace encircled his neck, hugging his skin with a wide band of gold etched with marking Eärendil could not read. Though he knew the High Tongue of his mother’s people, these marking were something different. They flowed, as Tengwar flowed, but stacked, almost like runes, as if the symbols created some picture only those learned could decipher.

Eönwë’s fingers brushed the necklace. He said, voice dead and yet not, because there were a thousand emotions trying to break through the deadness and breathe life back into those ice-blue eyes: “Count what blessings you have.”

Eönwë took Eärendil’s hand in his. From a pouch hung from his belt he pulled the Silmaril and pressed it into Eärendil’s palm. “Do not forget, Eärendil, when the centuries of your enslavement grow long and cold, that you sold yourself for love. Do not forget you saved that which you would have not only died for, but lived in misery for. And do not forget you saved the world as well.”

Eönwë’s touch fell away. The Maia turned, setting his boots into the white sand and beginning the long climb back up to the sea-cliffs above. Eärendil looked down, fingers curling away from the Silmaril’s flesh until it rested in the flat of his palm. So here they were again, back to the start, just two playthings who had sold themselves to whores for the price of love.

Eärendil called it a good price. He would have paid one ten times steeper to hold his boys one more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This story is part of [The Price ](http://efiction.esteliel.de/viewseries.php?seriesid=37)  
>  series. If any reader is curious, Eönwë’s story and the continuation of Earendil's can be found in The Price of Duty.  
> 


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